


The Maximum Alpha Male

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: Dinesh starts working on his fitness and goes down the Youtube hole.
Relationships: Dinesh Chugtai/Bertram Gilfoyle, Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 25
Kudos: 152





	The Maximum Alpha Male

Gilfoyle has a good body. He's got arms and legs with like visible muscles and Dinesh is prepared to bet he has abs under his shitty band T-shirts. Dinesh wonders if his stomach is hard or soft to touch. Some times their tussles get physical and he decides the next time he's going to shove him in the stomach, just so he can find out. 

Gilfoyle doesn't deserve a good body. As far as Dinesh can tell his life is identical to his own. Get up around ten, eleven, eat cereal, code, play video games, code, eat pizza, code, go to bed around 2am. And yet Gilfoyle looks like some kind of moose fucking Canadian lumberjack and Dinesh has, what is undeniably and unmistakeably, a coder's body. It sucks, it sucks.

Gilfoyle is also sexy. Being sexy isn't necessarily the same as having a good body, although it certainly doesn't hurt. No, Gilfoyle is sexy because he knows stuff, physical stuff. He can weld, he can fuse, he's not afraid of the sparks or the flame. When he was building Anton Dinesh was desperate to help. He wanted to sort of see if he could absorb some of that knowledge and bravery. But Gilfoyle wouldn't let him. Wouldn't even let him watch as he worked there, hair tied back, sweat forming a wet V down the back of his T-shirt. Dinesh could have done dinky shit like get him fresh T-shirts or bottles of water. Of course that's not their dynamic, that's more servile Jared Dunn kind of shit, but Dinesh would have done it, if it had helped. But Gilfoyle just told him to get out.

Nobody in the house really gets laid. Gilfoyle is the only person with a steady girlfriend, and she lives in Seattle. Dinesh thinks Richard and Jared have a thing going on though. Gilfoyle calls him delusional. 

"Bet you. Bet you ten bucks they have hideous, awkward stick insect sex in the server room." Dinesh makes a crying face. "Oh, Captain!!"

"Ten bucks. You're on."

They agree the bet will be valid for a year. When the deadline comes and goes, Gilfoyle agrees to extend it, because "I wouldn't want to take your number one sexual fantasy away from you." Dinesh thinks it's good Gilfoyle doesn't actually know the things he fantasise about.

Dinesh is proud when he gets a girlfriend. Mia is hot and thin and skilled as fuck. He's always liked people who are smarter than him and can do things he can't do. She asks to peg him one day and he says yes, not being sure what that entails, and then being too afraid to take it back after he's googled it (Mia is intimidating, which he's also into). To his surprise, it feels amazing. Her small hands hold him down with such force his mind goes the weirdest places. He'd played a game with Gilfoyle earlier in the day, and Gilfoyle had tortured his character as usual. 

"Fucking stop it," Dinesh told him. "let's just go to the next area, let me go."

"You're letting me do it, so you must like it," Gilfoyle said. "take it, you bitch."

Gilfoyle's taunt plays on his mind as he comes.

Of course, the Mia situation does not end well, and since Dinesh is not a man who does things by halves or with kindness he has her sent away to a maximum security penitentiary. He has to visit her a couple of times, to help out the FBI, and he comes home from each visit absolutely terrified she'll have seen through all his bullshit and will wreak terrible vengeance. But the vengeance never comes. Dinesh thinks about it, and realises that she probably really did like him. Maybe even love him. You're more likely to believe a lie if you want to believe it. He giggles at how dumb she turned out to be.

Pied Piper is, somehow, a success. Dinesh has a good salary, finally, and buys a Tesla. It doesn't quite work out for him like he wanted to. The new Pied Piper offices also has, he discovers one day, a gym. He walks by it a few times. It's always deserted. He's not surprised. One day he walks inside, almost feels guilty. He realises there's a TV and a sound system. He tests it and finds he can stream both music and Netflix from his phone. And he'd have it all to himself. That's certainly more enticing than Planet fucking Fitness. He goes on reddit and falls down a male fitness hole. Eventually, he stumbles over r/maximizingalphaness. It quickly becomes his favourite subreddit. Unlike the other fitness boards this one has a kind of holistic thinking about life, and it all comes down to the philosophy of one man, a Canadian professor called Peter Jordison. Dinesh spends hours watching him talk on Youtube about how men today suffer from feminization, how their natural role is being suppressed, and how you can regain your rightful alpha status through having a healthy mind and body and changing the way you think about the world.

He goes to a bookshop the next day and looks for Jordison's book, the 12 Laws of Living. He can't find it, so he stops an employee, a young woman with a nose piercing.

"Hi, sorry, where's the philosophy section?" he asks.

"One floor up. Are you looking for anything specific? Classic philosophy, modern, contemporary?"

"Contemporary."

"Any particular names in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know, somebody who talks about society and gender and um..."

The employee sighs a full body sigh which seems to ripple out to the tips of her fingers, then looks him down and up.

"Peter Jordison?"

"Oh, I think I've heard that name. Would you recommend his book?"

"No."

"Cool, I'll take it."

She walks him over to the self help section and he leaves with a $21,99 copy.

Dinesh reads it in an evening. 

He starts getting up earlier so he can work out for two hours. He gets Youtube recs and fitness help from the forum. He mimics the guys in the videos as they lift and curl and stretch. He never misses leg day. Almost to his surprise, he gets results. His arms and legs have visible muscles. His stomach is hard with abs. He posts pictures of himself in the progress threads, and other men call his body beautiful. He basks in it.

One day he's getting a beverage from their kitchen section when Lucy walks up to him. She's got glasses and chestnut hair and has been with the company for a while, but she hasn't spoken to him much before.

"Hey, Dinesh," she smiles.

"Oh, hey."

"Like, you've been working out right? I can tell."

"Yeah," he says. "just in the employee gym. It's free to use."

She touches his arm. "Maybe you could show me how to use the machines one day?"

"Just look it up on Youtube, that's what I did."

"It's more fun one on one though?"

Dinesh is about to reply when a buzzing noise hits. He looks over at Gilfoyle, who's mutilating a Hooli phone at his work station. 

"Excuse me," he tells Lucy and walks over to him.

"What are you doing?" Dinesh asks. 

"Just changing the port."

"If you showed me how, I could help you."

"No."

Frustration rises in Dinesh. "But I'd like to learn."

"Look it up on Youtube."

Dinesh scowls and walks off.

Dinesh feels like his life should be better. He's got the body now. He's got discipline and focus. But he's still just kind of vaguely dissatisfied with everything in his life. He logs on to Peter Jordison's website. His new video is all about a new product called Brain Pills. According to the professor, it's a concoction of vitamins and natural herbs that will unleash your alphaness. Dinesh hesitates. It's the kind of thing the old Dinesh would have made fun of forever. But then again, the old Dinesh was a pudgy beta loser. He orders a $45,99 (plus shipping) box of them. They arrive a couple of days later and he starts taking two a day.

He notices a change. He's more aggressive, becomes a little more short tempered and restless. He works a little more erratically, and finds himself having to pull overtime to keep up. One night he feels so mad about it he decides to go to the gym to work out some aggression. To his surprise, when he opens the door, he's blasted with shitty hardcore punk music. He walks in to find Gilfoyle working out. Gilfoyle stares at him, then turns off the music.

"You use the gym?" Dinesh asks, surprised.

"I always work out at night."

"Since when?"

"Since always. I used to do it in my room back at the hacker house."

"Ohhh," Dinesh says, like that solved a grand mystery.

"I'm done with this machine, if you want it," Gilfoyle says. "I'm sure we can find a playlist both of us find tolerable."

"You ever wonder which of us would win in a fight?" Dinesh asks.

"What."

"Why don't we like, wrestle."

"No."

"Are you scared? Oh, I forgot. You're a cuck. Or in an open relationship, as it's also known." Dinesh says. Gilfoyle's eyes narrow behind his glasses. 

"Ok."

Dinesh takes off his shirt and walks over to the mats. The compliments from the subreddit play on his mind. Nice abs bro. Nice fucking guns man. He imagines Gilfoyle's eyes heavy on him.

Gilfoyle picks up his shirt and throws it at him. "Put your fucking shirt back on. I'm not doing whatever Oswald Penitentiary fantasy you have in mind."

Sheepishly, Dinesh pulls the T-shirt back on.

They stand opposite each other. Dinesh is actually going to test strength with Gilfoyle, and he feels fucking confident he will win. It's going to be so fucking sweet, it's going to-  
Gilfoyle kicks his ankle, hard, and Dinesh yelps and loses his footing and falls down on one knee. Gilfoyle moves quickly behind him, presses the weight of his body into him, twists one of Dinesh's arms behind his back and puts him in a chokehold.

"This isn't wrestling, you're cheating!" Dinesh chokes, grasping at Gilfoyle's arm with his free hand.

"Peter Jordison doesn't have any advice for an occasion such as this? No pill you could take?" He tightens the hold so Dinesh can't speak. "Whatever flavour of loser you've been over the years, you've never been a douchebag. Recently though? I've never seen a bigger fucking douche in my life. Stop taking those incel drugs before you turn into Gavin Belson without the money."

Gilfoyle pushes him to the floor and walks away, and Dinesh is left on his hands and knees, wheezing. When he gets his breath back, he rolls over on his back, looks up at the ceiling. He did everything right, he did everything by the book, and Gilfoyle still won. He did everything right and Gilfoyle still hates him.

Feeling deflated, he doesn't bother with the workout. He just changes and decides to head home. The Pied Piper offices are empty, but he can see the light is on in Richard's office and his door is partly open. Maybe he'll want to share a Lyft home. He walks over and hears Richard's voice.

"-shares up ten percent after this, like we're becoming valid you know?"

"I always believed in you, Richard."

Oh great, Jared's in there too. He walks up to say goodnight and sees through the sliver of open door the unsettling sight of Pied Piper's CEO and COO kissing, arms around each other. He quietly shuffles backwards and leaves. He was right about them. He won the bet. He feels no victory. Richard, the twitchiest, weirdest, skinniest beta Dinesh has ever met, has someone who loves him. Has someone he loves. Dinesh on the other hand, a Maximum Alpha according to reddit, just got choked out by the guy he, admittedly, has had a hopeless crush on for something like seven years now.

He gets rid of the rest of the Brain Pills the next day, and cancels his subscription to Jordison's site. He deletes his reddit account. He takes the book to Goodwill and when he leaves he sees a dozen other copies of it sitting on their shelves. He dials back the working out to three times a week. He doesn't really care about being ripped anymore, fat lot of good it did him. But he does enjoy being strong and having stamina for the first time in his life, so he doesn't want to give it up completely. 

One day he decides, fuck it, he's always wanted to do it, and orders welding equipment on ebay. His first project isn't major, just a little modding of a Raspberry Pi, and it takes ages as he pauses and rewatches the Youtube tutorial, but he's still very proud of himself. He snaps a picture and posts it to instagram. When he checks his phone a little later, Gilfoyle has liked the photo. He almost stops in his tracks. Gilfoyle never likes anything he posts on social media. In fact, he has in the past made a point of telling him "I hated your latest selfie", in lieu of a dislike function.

He buys parts to put together a new, extremely badass gaming computer. From fucking scratch! He posts another photo on instagram of the dissembled pieces and a "Wish me luck" caption. He gets a DM from Gilfoyle.

_Big project. Need help?_

Dinesh's mouth falls open. He should say no right? Give him a taste of his own medicine, right?

_Yeah ok :)_

Gilfoyle comes over. It's the first time he's been to Dinesh's new apartment. It has a second bedroom Dinesh is using as a hobby room, it's well ventilated and he's put his welding stuff in there. 

"This is a fire hazard," Gilfoyle says.

"It's just for small projects," Dinesh protests. 

"Get rid of the rug at least."

Dinesh rolls it up and when he comes back out Gilfoyle is sketching on a piece of paper. Dinesh is annoyed, like he hasn't already thought of a design? He shows him his own drawing and after some bickering they come up with a new one together.

Building the computer is fun. They complete it over two nights. Dinesh feels sad when it's all over. 

"Thanks for helping me out," he says. "guess you'll want to get going."

"It's still missing something."

"What?" 

"A logo."

Dinesh grins and digs out his 3D printer, and Gilfoyle fires up the design program on his Macbook. 

"What should it be?"

"It should be like a D and a G, since we made it together," Dinesh says, generously. 

"Dolce and Gabbana," Gilfoyle says tunelessly. "maybe make it a G and a D instead."

"Oh yeah, mister Lucifer? That's how Jewish people spell God. With like a dash inbetween."

"How about a goat?"

"How about something that's not a gross filthy animal?"

In the end they come up with a simple lightning flash design and Dinesh thinks designing shit is a little harder than it fucking looks. They start printing it and go out into Dinesh's living room while the machine works.

"Do you want to watch a movie or play a game or something?" Dinesh asks. Gilfoyle shrugs. They find a shitty horror movie on Netflix and Dinesh gets some beers out of the fridge.

"This is almost like old times," Dinesh says.

"You talking over movies? It's exactly like old times."

"I miss them," Dinesh says. "I miss you."

Gilfoyle turns to look at him. "Hmm."

"I mean, I miss everything. The house, and the guys - I mean I see you all all the time, but it's not the same. It's work now, but it used to be like, life, you know? Now I feel like I've got work, but I don't have that much of a life."

"I forgot you only needed half a beer to get maudlin. You were miserable back then too, you know." He launches into his Dinesh impression, which is identical to his regular voice. "Oh, I don't have a girlfriend. Oh, why does my cousin have more money than me. Oh, why did the British steal my land."

"I was happy!" Dinesh protests. "We were happy."

Gilfoyle shrugs. "Happiness isn't a human right, Dinesh. We've got our health, we're well paid, we'll never be out of a job, we live somewhere the weather isn't shit. We're doing okay. Being delighted to be alive is for the born again or Italians or something."

"You don't believe that," Dinesh says, even though he probably does. "I want to be happy."

"Okay. What would make you happy?"

He looks straight at him while he says it, like a challenge, and Dinesh thinks, he knows, he knows, fuck my life, he knows. Peter Jordison's voice starts playing in his mind. _You are an alpha male, and don't you forget it. You go out there, and you take what is rightfully yours. Nothing's going to come to you so you be pro active. I know you can do it._ He wonders how Peter Jordison feels about interracial gay relationships when he stumbles forward and kisses Gilfoyle. 

Gilfoyle doesn't punch him in the head or bodyslam him or run away. He doesn't even withdraw. He does, however, put a hand on his cheek and push him away, gently, and looks at him a little amused.

"Knew it," he says. 

Dinesh's mouth falls open and he tries to think of an explanation or an excuse or even a bribe for his eternal silence (would Gilfoyle want to own a Tesla?) when Gilfoyle leans in and kisses him again. It is, by some distance, the best kiss of Dinesh's life.

They undress on the sofa in front of the shitty Netflix horror and Dinesh finds that Gilfoyle's stomach is neither soft or hard, it's kind of both. His eyes are smaller without the glasses and he squints adorably when he tries to focus on Dinesh's face. Gilfoyle pushes him so he's lying with his back against the back of the sofa and then Gilfoyle lies close to him, on his side, puts one arm around his back and uses his other hand to jerk him off. Dinesh has got both hands on Gilfoyle's face, kissing him and kissing him, finally getting to find out what that fucking beard feels like, until Gilfoyle with a frustrated noise grabs one of his hands and puts it on his dick. The screams in the movie drown out the wet noises of their kissing and sounds of flesh on flesh. Gilfoyle comes first and for a second a dumb part of Dinesh's brain tries to rack it up as a victory, one point for Dinesh, when the feel of Gilfoyle's cum on his stomach coupled with Gilfoyle's hard strokes makes him come too. Dinesh grabs the kleenex box he has under his sofa (Gilfoyle, mercifully, does not comment) and wipes them both off. 

"Hey," Gilfoyle says, conversationally. "the logo should have finished printing by now."

They walk into the hobby room and there it is, a cute little 3D yellow lightning flash.

"How do we affix it?" Dinesh asks.

"Superglue," Gilfoyle says.

"Aw. I was hoping you'd say we needed to blowtorch the back or something."

"I bet you'd love to see me use a blowtorch naked. Wouldn't that make for a good episode of Tales from the Emergency Room."

Gilfoyle locates some superglue in Dinesh's toolbox and Dinesh points to where on the computer he wants it, and Gilfoyle affixes it. 

"There," Dinesh says. "all done."

"No. Superglue needs like 12 hours to dry. I don't leave a project when it's nearly done."

Dinesh grins and puts his arms around him, and when Gilfoyle's arms go up around him too he feels happy.


End file.
